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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1015 



of the work attached to assistantships offers 

 important problems to the scientific stu- 

 dent of administration. At its best an 

 assistantship means self-support while ad- 

 vancing in knowledge and professional 

 training for the assistant, equally good 

 instruction for the classes in question, re- 

 lief for the professor who can devote him- 

 self to work that he prefers, though it is in 

 the popular sense much harder to do, and 

 economy for the fiscal authorities who are 

 enabled to pay certain services no more 

 than efficiency requires. 



THE CHANGE IN THE SALARIES OP TEACHERS 

 IN HIGHER INSTITUTIONS 



The salaries of instructors have shown a 

 clear increase during the past five years. 

 There has been an average gain of $80. 

 This gain has been caused by a decrease in 

 the proportions of salaries of $1,000 and 

 under and an increase in the proportions 

 of salaries of $1,050 and over. The in- 

 crease has been greatest in the groups of 

 institutions paying on the average under 

 $1,000 in 1907-08. The gain for these aver- 

 ages $118, and their median salary has 

 moved up from $900 to $1,000. The gain 

 has been least in the institution groups 

 which had the highest salaries in 1907-08, 

 except Harvard and Columbia, being $63 

 for the combined group including Cali- 

 fornia, Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 

 ogy, Toronto, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, 

 Princeton, Tale, Harvard and Columbia, 

 and much less if Harvard and Columbia 

 are excluded. 



Table V. gives the percentage of in- 

 structors receiving less than $650, the per- 

 centage receiving from $650 to $849, the 

 percentage receiving from $850 to $1,049, 

 and so on, both for 1907-08 and for 1912- 

 13. It will be seen that all the low salaries 

 have decreased in relative frequency, while 

 all the high salaries have increased. 



TABLE V 

 CHANGE IN INSTEUCTORS' SALARIES 



All Institutions Combined; Coarse Grouping 



The change in the salaries paid to teach- 

 ers of intermediate grades is complex and 

 difficult to express. In the institutions 

 paying in 1907-08 in most eases from 

 $1,000 to $1,500, clustered around an aver- 

 age of about $1,200, there has been an 

 average gain of about $200. This gain 

 concerns positions filled by 110 individuals 

 in 1907-08, and by 161 in 1912-13. In 

 Harvard and Columbia, at the other salary 

 extreme, there has been an average gain 

 of $226. Here 116 and 160 positions were 

 concerned in 1907-08 and 1912-13, respec- 

 tively. The remaining institutions, with 

 660 positions for 1907-08 and 979 for 

 1912-13, show an average gain of about 

 $120, the gain being closely the same 

 whether an average of $1,500, $1,600, $1,700, 

 $1,800 or $2,000 was paid in 1907-08. The 

 intermediate grades have then made most 

 improvement in the institutions which in 

 1907-08 paid the very low or the very high 

 salaries. 



The general change is shown in Table 

 VI. which gives the percentages (in 1907- 

 08 and in 1912-13) of teachers receiving 

 each salary amount. The grouping shows 

 with special clearness the decrease in rela- 

 tive frequency of salaries below $1,500 

 and the increased relative frequency of 

 salaries above $1,850. The change has been 



